International Journal of Humanities

and Social Sciences (IJHSS)

ISSN(P): 2319-393X; ISSN(E): 2319-3948
Vol. 3, Issue 1, Jan 2014, 49-60
© IASET

VARIABILITY IN HANDWRITING PATTERNS AMONG ETHNIC GROUPS OF INDIA

MONIKA SAINI1 & A. K. KAPOOR2

1
Non-Net Fellow in Department of Anthropology, University of Delhi, Delhi, India
2
Professor, Department of Anthropology, University of Delhi, Delhi, India

ABSTRACT

Writing is a complex act and highly developed skill. Variation in handwriting is the foremost principle of
handwriting analysis. This paper presents an offline handwriting analysis method for English characters to see the variation
in different Ethnic groups of India. Important features of handwriting were obtained and classified into Macro and micro
features. These features were used to establish the discriminating power of handwriting for different Ethnic groups.
In addition to this changes in handwriting patterns were also observed with respect to different factors like age, gender and
education level etc. This approach provides impetus for identifying ethnicity with the help of handwriting features and
assists in Forensic document examination.

KEYWORDS: Forensic Science, Handwriting Analysis, Ethnic Groups, Handwriting Variations, Document
Examination

INTRODUCTION

Handwriting of a person has some unique features which can be used for personal identification. Just as no two
people are exactly alike, the handwritings of no two people are exactly alike in their combination of characteristics. There
are, of course, natural variations within the handwriting of each individual. Writer individuality rests on the hypothesis that
each individual has consistent handwriting that is distinct from the handwriting of another individual.

Every person whose handwriting is developed and permanently formed had adopted certain more or less
distinctive peculiarities in the formation of letters of which he is generally unaware. A peculiarity in handwriting is more
often cultivated than controlled. There are many peculiarities in a handwriting text like specific shape of letters, e.g. their
roundness or sharpness, regular or irregular spacing between letters, slope, pressure, average size of the letters, rhythm tic
repetition of the elements or arrhythmia and many others e.g. line quality, spacing and pen-lifts.

This paper presents an off-line analysis method for English handwritten characters among Delhi population, North
India. The objective was to set a hypothesis that there are different handwriting patterns among different ethnic groups and
to study the age, gender education and occupation differences with reference to handwriting among various ethnic groups
in Delhi.

It has been observed that many studies have been conducted on the Handwriting identification and recognition.
(Zhang &Srihari 2003, Schlapbach & Bunke 2004, Zheng et al 2004,Plamondon&Srihari 2000, Marti &Bunke 2002).
These studies highlighted writer identification using different models and approaches like hidden Markov model (HMM),
Markov Random Field-based (MRF) approach and binary vector dissimilarity measures etc. No study on the variability in
handwriting patterns among different ethnic groups has been done so far, keeping the following aims, the present study
was conducted.
50 Monika Saini & A. K. Kapoor

Motivation

Identification through handwriting is very popular and widely used in forensic science. Though writer
identification (signature verification) has been used for a long time, use of handwriting for automatic recognition has
started few years ago. This technology has advanced to a much high level.

As an alternative, discriminating power of handwriting can also be used for variations among various ethnic
groups in India. The present study is an effort to establish the variability in handwriting patterns of different ethnic groups
in India.

Area and People

Delhi is a metropolitan region in India that includes the national capital city, New Delhi. Delhi city is one of
India's most affluent urban centres. It is located in northern India on the banks of the River Yamuna in the area known as
Delhi plains. New Delhi is a cosmopolitan city due to the multi-ethnic and multi-cultural presence of the vast Indian
bureaucracy and political system. In India there are various population groups which are divided into caste groups,
religious groups, scheduled tribes, scheduled castes and various ethnic groups. The various ethnic groups have been studied
from holistic anthropological dimension viz. Kapoor et al, 2012 a, b, c; Malhotra et al, 1974,1980; Vidyarthi et al, 1976;
Vijeta & Kapoor, 2012; Saini 2013 and many more. Delhi’s ethnic groups may be sub-divided into two categories,
indigenous and migrant. The indigenous people are those who belong to the Delhi-middle Yamuna basin, a region which
spreads radially from the capital up to a distance of approximately 200 kilometres. Brahmin, Punjabi, Jat, Baniya and Ahir
are considered indigenous people whereas Bengali Kayastha and Tamilians are considered as migrant populations. These
groups are taken into consideration for the present study.

In Hindu society it is considered that Brahmins were born from Mahapurush’smukh (mouth). These are
considered as class of priests and scholars. The Brahmins are divided into two regional groups: Pancha-Gauda (Northern
India) and Pancha-Dravida (Southern India). Panjabi is a heterogeneous ethnic group originated from Panjab region.
Panjabi people are found among Hindu and Sikh. It was primarily a linguistic group regardless of any religious affiliations.
Jat ethnic group belongs to non-elite tillers and herders of northern India. These people are also found among Hinduism,
Sikhism and Islam. Baniya is an occupational ethnic group. These are Hindu by religion. Baniyas maintain intercommunity
linkages with the Brahman, Valand, Soni and other communities through trade and service. Ahir is an ethnic group, whose
traditional occupation is cow-herding. They are mainly concentrated in northern part of India. Bengali Kayasthaethnic
group is basically from Bengal. This is a homogeneous group with heterogeneous origin. Tamilians group is a linguistic
group from Tamilnadu, Srilanka and Maldives.

This study puts forward the natural variation in handwriting. The objective of this study was to establish the
hypothesis that handwriting is population or ethnic group specific.

MATERIAL AND METHODS

There are two major points of concern when analyzing handwriting samples: First, to see the Variance within the
handwriting patterns of different ethnic groups. Second, to see the changes in handwriting features with respect to different
factors like age, education level etc. The present study consisted of three phases: data collection, feature extraction and
statistical analysis to establish the classificatory power of handwriting. In the data collection phase, representative samples
of handwriting were collected. In the second phase, certain peculiar characteristics of handwriting that would show the
different patterns of handwriting was obtained. After that analysis part was done with the help of SPSS software.
Variability in Handwriting Patterns among Ethnic Groups of India 51

Data Collection

An individual’s handwriting changes over his or her lifetime. The most obvious changes take place from
childhood through adolescence. Graphic maturity is generally reached towards the end of adolescence. Gradual changes
will continue to occur. Although students learn the system of writing, each develops unique characteristics that distinguish
his or her writing from all other writers. These are called individual characteristics, and they are either consciously created
or subconsciously executed. The penmanship system taught in schools influences handwriting. Handwriting is also
influenced by physiology, training, and other behavioural factors. (Srihari et al;2008)

To see the major variation in handwriting, samples from 12-18 yrs. School students were obtained. 8 th-12th class
was taken into consideration. Total 270 students were taken as representative sample from Delhi schools.

Standard Document

A standard document in English, which was to be copied by each subject, was designed for the present study. The
source document was one page text on Global warming with certain handwriting characteristics of interest. The source
document also contained punctuation marks like comma, brackets and semi-colon, numerals like 0,1,2,4, 9 and some italic
written words.

Subjects were asked to copy the document two times in his/her natural handwriting on plain and ruled sheets.
They were allowed to use the pen of their own choice. In case writing instrument was not available with the subject it was
supplied to them. No other restriction was imposed on the writers.

In addition to the source document subjects were also asked to fill the proforma that encodes general information
like Name, Age, Sex, Religion, Caste, Date and Place of examination. Certain close ended question related to handwriting
e.g. relationship of handwriting with personality, mood, gender, time, handedness and resemblance of handwriting with
parents were asked in the pro-forma. With the help of pro-forma knowledge of subject regarding forensic document
examination was also examined. The field work was conducted from November 2012 to January 2013.

Feature Extraction

Each handwritten document was analyzed to study 19 features of handwriting. These features were divided into
two classes: Macro-features and Micro-features. These characteristics or features were used to establish the discriminative
power of handwriting among different ethnic groups. These features include

Macro- Features

 Margin

 Slant

 Size of the handwriting

 line Spacing

 Word spacing

 Letter spacing

Micro-Features

 Beginning Stroke
52 Monika Saini & A. K. Kapoor

 Ending Stroke

 Lower case ‘t’ analysis- t stem length, Bar pressure, Bar height and Bar length

 ‘i’ – dot

 lower case e loop

 ‘o’ analysis

 lower case ‘m’

 lower case ‘d’

 lower case ‘g’ and ‘y’ loop analysis

On the basis of different handwriting patterns obtained, these features can be divided into different types

Handwriting
S.No Type
Features
i) Wide left margin
ii) Wider to narrow left margin
iii) Narrow to wider left margin
iv) Even margins all around
v)Wide upper margin
1. Margin
vi) No upper margin
vii) Narrow left margin
viii) Narrow upper margin
ix) Irregular margin
x) No left margin
i) Vertical slant
ii) Moderate left slant
iii) Extreme left slant
2. Slant
iv) Moderate right slant
v) Extreme right slant
vi) irregular slant
i) Long and curved
ii) Unbending
3. Beginning stroke iii) Short curves from left to right
iv) Long and below baseline stroke
v) absent
i) Long, blunt and upward tending
ii) Upward tending and tapered
iii) High reaching
4. Ending stroke
iv) Below baseline
v) Extended
vi) Missing
i) Retraced
Lower case ‘t’ ii) Looped
5.
analysis iii) Inflexible beginning stroke
iv) Separated
i) Normal stem
ii) Long stem
6. ‘t’ stem length
iii) Short stem
iv) Spread-out stem
i)Normal pressure
ii) Light pressure
7. ‘t’ bar pressure
iii) Heavy pressure
iv) Starts with heavy pressure but tapers
Variability in Handwriting Patterns among Ethnic Groups of India 53

Table: Contd.,
i)High above the stem
ii) High bar
8. ‘t’ bar height iii) Balanced bar
iv) Low bar
v) No bar
i)long
ii) Short
iii) Ascending bar
‘t’ bar length of
9. iv) descending bar
crossing
v) More to left
v) More to right
vi) Absent
i)Round and directly above the stem
ii) Round and just above the stem
iii) Round and high above the stem
iv) Very light
10. ‘i’-dot analysis v) Left placed dot
vi) Right placed dot
vii) Circular dot
viii) Smudged dot
ix) Absent
i) Narrow loop
ii) Broad loop
Lower case ‘e’ loop
11. iii) No loop
analysis
iv) Greek ε
v) Normal loop
i)Uphill humps
ii) Downhill humps
Lower case ‘m’ iii) Even humps
12.
analysis iv) Rounded humps
v) Sharp humps
vi) Uneven humps
i) Closed at the top with no loop
Lower case ‘o’
13. ii) Open at the top
analysis
iii) One inner loop
i) Long
ii) Short
Lower case ‘d’
14. iii) Looped
analysis
iv) split stem
v) without extension
i)Triangular loop
ii) Rounded full loop
iii) Long and closed loop
iv) Broad and full loop
Lower case ‘g’ and ‘y’ v) Small and cramped loop
15.
loop analysis vi) Short and closed loop
vii) Broad and full loop
viii) Left arc
ix) Open loop
x)long down stroke

Statistical Analysis

The analysis work was done with the help of SPSS 16 software. Total 270 students, out of which 157 boys
and 113 girls were taken between 12-18 age group from seven ethnic groups of India.
54 Monika Saini & A. K. Kapoor

Table 1: Writer’s View on Relationship of Handwriting with Different Factors

Table 1 shows writer’s view on relationship of handwriting with personality, mood, time, age and gender. Among
all the seven ethnic groups majority of the subjects admitted that their handwriting is related with personality and reflects
mood. All the female writers among Bengali ethnic group admitted relationship of handwriting with personality. Among
Brahmin ethnic group 50% males and females admitted that their handwriting changes with time. Among Punjabis 55.2%
males and 50% females responded positively with reference to handwriting change with time whereas 100% Jat, Baniya
and Bengali females agreed for the same with age. Among Baniya ethnic group 77.8% females think that handwriting
varies with gender.

Table 2: Different Factors that Makes Writer’s Handwriting Good

Table 2 depicts different factors that makes writer’s handwriting good. Mood and concentration was one of the
major factors for making handwriting good among Brahmin, Bengali, Baniya, Punjabi and Tamilian females with 55.0%,
42.9%, 33.3%, 31.2% and 28.6% respectively whereas Bengali, Ahir, Jat and Panjabi ethnic group males added writing
style as good handwriting factor with 40.0%, 33.3%, 32.0% and 27.6%. Among Brahmin males and Ahirfemales majority
of the writers considered neatness and clarity for making their handwriting good. Male writers in Tamilian and Baniya
ethnic group said pen as good handwriting factor with 35.0% and 30.0%. Majority of Jat females considered hard practice
for making their handwriting good with 36.4% followed by pen used (27.3%).
Variability in Handwriting Patterns among Ethnic Groups of India 55

Table 3: Forgery Ability among Ethnic Groups

Table 3 displays the forgery ability among seven ethnic groups. Most of the male and female writers among
Brahmin, Panjabi, Ahir and Bengali ethnic group do not have the ability to forge. 85.7% Bengali females responded
negative for the forgery ability followed by 76.9% females among Ahir ethnic group. Majority of females among Baniya,
Jat and Tamilian ethnic group have forgery ability with 55.6%, 54.5% and 52.4% respectively.

Table 4: Patterns of Slant among Ethnic Groups

Table 4 represents patterns of slant among seven ethnic groups. Vertical slant was prevalent among females of Jat,
Tamilian, Ahir, Brahmin Panjabi and Bengali ethnic group with 63.6%, 57.1%, 53.8%, 50.0%, 50.0% and 42.9%. It was
also found to be maximum among Tamilian and Jat males with 35.0% and 24.0%. Males among Brahmin, Jat and Ahir
used to leave moderately right slant with 26.3%, 24.0% and 33.3% which is maximum. Under moderately right slant,
55.6% Baniya and 42.9% Bengali females were found to be maximum. Irregular slant was common among males of
Panjabi, Baniya, Ahir and Bengali ethnic group. It was found to be highest among among Bengali males with 60.

Table 5: Line Spacing (Handwriting Feature) among Ethnic Groups

Table 5 represents line spacing (handwriting feature) among seven ethnic groups. Majority of writers among
Brahmin, Panjabi, Jat, Ahir and Bengali used to leave 0.20-0.30 c.m. spacing between two lines. Maximum percentage was
found among Jat females with 54.5% followed by Ahir males with 46.7%. 71.4% females in Bengali ethnic group used to
56 Monika Saini & A. K. Kapoor

leave 0.30-0.40 c.m. spacing which is maximum followed by Panjabi females with 43.8%. Line spacing among males of
Baniya, Jat, Bengali and tamilian ethnic group was low i.e. 0.10-0.20 c.m. Maximum of this range was found among
Baniya i.e. 40% whereas among females highest was found among Ahir ethnic group with 46.2% followed by Tamilian
females i.e. 38.1%.

Table 6: Word Spacing (Handwriting Feature) among Ethnic Groups

Table 6 presents the word spacing among seven ethnic groups. Out of seven, six ethnic groups i.e. Panjabi, Jat,
Baniya, Ahir, Bengali and Tamilian used to leave 0.37-0.57 c.m. spacing between words. Tamilian and Bengali females
spacing was found to be higher that is 0.57-0.77 c.m. whereas among females word spacing was lower i.e. 0.17-0.37 c.m.
with 65.0%.

Micro - Features

Figure 1: Patterns of Lower Case ‘m’ Humps among Ethnic Groups

Figure 1 represents interaction between ethnic groups and lower case ‘m’ humps. Sharp humps was most
prevalent among Panjabis. Out of the total Baniyas (10.7%), 4.4% Writers tend to form round humps in alphabet ‘m’.
Sharp humps was also found among Brahmin, Jat, Tamilian and Ahir ethnic groups with 7.8%, 7.0%, 5.9% and 5.2%
respectively.
Variability in Handwriting Patterns among Ethnic Groups of India 57

Figure 2: Patterns of Lower Case ‘o’ among Ethnic Groups

Figure 2 depicts the patterns of lower case ‘o’ loop among ethnic groups. 10.4% Brahmins tend to form inner loop
in the lower case ‘o’ which is maximum in this category. Out of the total writers 57.4% subjects close the alphabet ‘o’ at
the top with no loop. In this category Panjabis were maximum with 13.7% followed by Tamilian, Jat and Ahir ethnic
groups.

Figure 3: Patterns of Beginning Stroke among Ethnic Groups

Figure 3 represents the patterns of Beginning Stroke among ethnic groups. Out of the total Jats i.e. 13.3%, 6.3%
Jats tend to form beginning stroke that is curved from left to right. Total 57.8% writers did not form beginning stroke.
Panjabis and Brahmins were highest in this category with 13.7% and 12.6% respectively.
58 Monika Saini & A. K. Kapoor

Changes in Micro Features (Handwriting Features) with Reference to Education Level, Age and Gender

Figure 4: Line Spacing (Handwriting Feature) with Reference to Education Level

Figure 4 displays changes in line spacing (Handwriting feature) with education level. Writers from 11th and 12th
classes leave very narrow spaces between lines i.e. 0.10-0.20 c.m. whereas majority of students in 8 th and 9th classes leave
0.20-0.30 c.m. between lines.

Figure 5: Line Spacing (Handwriting Feature) with Reference to Age

Figure 5 depicts changes in line spacing (Handwriting feature) with age. Spacing between lines decreases with
increasing age. Among 16, 17 and 18 age group line spacing is extremely low that is 0.10-0.20 c.m. while in 13 and 14 age
group line spacing is 0.20-0.30 c.m. In 15 age group, spacing between lines slightly increases that is 0.30-0.40 c.m.
Variability in Handwriting Patterns among Ethnic Groups of India 59

Figure 6: Word Spacing (Handwriting Feature) with Reference to Gender

Figure 6 represents changes in word spacing with Gender. Out of the total male writers majority of males leave
larger spaces between words that is 0.47-0.57 c.m. while most of the females leave 0.37-0.47 c.m. spaces between words.

SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS

The present study was conducted to see the variations in handwriting patterns or features among different ethnic
groups. These variations are easily observable in macro handwriting features like Slant, Word size, Line spacing, Word
spacing and Letter spacing. Discriminations were also seen in case of micro handwriting features like lower case ‘m’ hump
formation, lower case ‘o’ loop formation and type of beginning stroke. The main characteristic features of Brahmin ethnic
group were moderately right slant and inner loop formation in lower case ‘o’. In Panjabi group vertical slant, lower case ‘o’
closed at the top with no loop formation and larger line spacing than other ethnic groups was main features of handwriting.
Among Jat ethnic group peculiar handwriting pattern was seen in case of beginning stroke i.e. curved left to right. Rounded
humps in lower case ‘m’ was main feature in Baniya ethnic groups. Lowest line spacing was found in Tamilian ethnic
group.

Variations were also seen in handwriting features with education level, age and gender. Line spacing decreases
with increasing education level and age. Word spacing is larger in most of the males than females. There are many
important extensions of the study that could be done with more handwriting samples. Some of these are to study and
compare the handwritings of more ethnic groups from other areas of Indian population so that identification of different
ethnic groups can be done with the help of handwriting features.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Thanks are due to University of Delhi for awarding me with fellowship under which the fieldwork was conducted.
Authors are grateful to principal, students and teachers of R.D. Rajpal Public school for their help and support. I also wish
to thank Ms.Vijeta for her care and cooperation during field work.

REFERENCES

1. Kapoor S., Bhasin B., Dhall M., Verma D., Kapoor A.K. Aging Dynamics in Morpho-Physiological
characteristics among males of India. Eurasian Journal of Anthropology, 2012; 3(1):10-20.
60 Monika Saini & A. K. Kapoor

2. Kapoor A.K., Kaur J., Trivedi K. &Sinha R. The Role of Natural Selection in Demographic Fluctuation among
the various caste groups of Kerala, India. International Journal of Science and Emerging Technologies,
2012;3 (4):82-88.

3. Kapoor A.K. &Verma D. Genetic Diversity among Coastal Populations of India. The Anthropologist,
2012; 13 (2): 61-72.

4. Malhotra K.C., Chakraborty R. and Bhanu B.V. Variation in dermal ridges in nine population groups of
Maharashtra, India. I. intra and inter population diversity. Human Heredity, 1980; 30:307-315.

5. Malhotra K.C., Mutalik G.C., Bhanu B.V., Kate S.L. and Fulmali P.M. Incidence of colour blindness among four
endogamous nomadic groups. An example of natural selection.Heredity, 1974; 32:145-149.

6. Marti U.-V. &Bunke H. The IAM-database: An English sentence database for off-line handwriting recognition.
International Journal of Document Analysis and Recognition, 2002; 5:39-46.

7. Plamondon R. &Srihari S. On-line and off-line handwriting recognition: A comprehensive survey. IEEE Trans. on
Pattern Analysis and Machine Intelligence, 2000; 22:63-84.

8. Saini M. Cardiovascular Functions and their association with structural variables among Baiga and Gond males of
Madhya Pradesh. Createspace Independent Publishing Platform, USA, 2013.

9. Schlapbach A. &Bunke H. Offline handwriting identification using HMM based recognizers. Pattern Recognition,
ICPR, 2004; 2:654-658.

10. Srihari S., Huang C., Srinivasan H. On the Discriminability of handwriting of twins. J Forensic Science,
2008; 53:430-446.

11. Vidyarthi L.P., Rai B.K. The Tribal Culture of India. Concept Publishing Company, New Delhi, 1976.

12. Vijeta and Kapoor A.K. Estimation of Stature from Hand Length and Hand Breadth among Population Groups of
Himachal Pradesh. Asian Journal of Science and Applied Technology, 2012; 1:50-54.

13. Zhang B. and Srihari S. Binary Vector Dissimilarity Measures for Handwriting Identification. Proceedings of the
SPIE 5010, Document Recognition and Retrieval X; 2003; Santa Clara, CA.

14. Zheng Y., Li H, DoermannD. Machine printed text and handwriting identification in noisy document images.
IEEE Trans. on Pattern Analysis and Machine Intelligence, 2004; 26:337-353.